John Gregg

John is currently employed as a Policy Advisor to The West Australian Labor Party working across all opposition portfolios. Prior to this role, John worked as a marketing strategist and management consultant in Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, China and the United Kingdom for a wide variety of clients including the WWF, Greenpeace, British Government, NSW Health, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Eli Lilly.

Blog Posts

Much current thinking about climate change and renewable energy has been based on rational economic theory and standard modelling. A core assumption of this approach is that individuals always seek to maximise their utility; however, in many fields where human behaviour plays a substantial intervening role—such as finance, health, or taxation—this assumption has been shown to be flawed. It must therefore be of concern that the same flawed assumption is prominent in the response to climate change.

Andrew Craig hit the start-button on a balmy Albany April day. His Landcruiser unhooked from the household power, then the twin electric motors cut in and moved it quietly down the drive. The silence disturbed some people when HydroElectrics first took over the V8 market, so they’d bought the audio option that simulated the sound of a historical V8 engine. Now the only time you’d hear anything like that was when the amplified “chugga, chugga, chugga” of a Harley Electro Hog drifted through the open window.

Given the mass of conflicting information surrounding Australia’s climate change policy; one might want to try to find out what the rest of the world really is doing. Unfortunately, currently missing from the online information about climate change policies around the world is one non partisan website that compares and contrasts the policy action being undertaken by governments around the world. However, there are various Wikipedia sites that do a reasonable job of aggregating ETS, RETs, carbon tax and other policy instruments commonly utilised around the world. These include;

What a week it’s been for the climate debate in Australia. The furore surrounding Christopher Monckton’s visit, the letter signed by 50 academics calling for a cancellation of his speaking engagements, the ensuing backlash against those petitioners by readers of The West Australian and of course Tony Abbott’s very public swipe at the calibre of our leading economists.

News updates on Germany’s renewables achievements and objectives to 2020 caught my attention because I had recently drafted a policy paper on solar PV feed in tariffs in WA, and naturally a quick literature review highlighted Germany as the pace setter in clean energy policy delivery and outcomes.